Dr Geoff Walters

Over the last decade, corporate governance has become an increasingly important issue that national governing bodies of sport (NGBs) in the UK have had to address. In part this was due to instances of poor management and failures in organisational governance. For example in 1997 the governing body for athletics, the British Athletics Federation, was dissolved due to poor financial management, to be replaced by UK Athletics. It was also a reflection of the increased level of public funding for sport, particularly following the introduction of the National Lottery (a state-sponsored gambling institution) in 1994, which has resulted in the need for more professional sports’ administrative structures.

Moreover, it reflected the increasing focus on sport as a means to deliver Government policy. Since 2001 many NGBs in the UK have received financial assistance from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport as part of a NGB Modernisation Programme that has been managed through UK Sport, the non departmental public body that supports elite athlete development in the UK. The objective of the Modernisation Programme has been to improve the way that NGBs are governed and managed. Further developments have taken place throughout the last 10 years. For example all funded NGBs have to meet certain standards relating to corporate governance; NGBs take part in an annual self-assurance process which provides the basis on which funding is determined; and the governance of Olympic sport NGBs is continually monitored in the build up to the London 2012 Olympic Games as part of UK Sport’s ‘Mission 2012’ programme.

The development of corporate governance within NGBs provided the backdrop for a recent research project undertaken by the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre. The objective of the research was to analyze standards of governance at UK NGBs and consider the extent to which some of the recommendations from the Modernisation Programme have been implemented. The research took place between October 2009 and January 2010 and has been carried out by a team of three researchers from the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre. The research team carried out an online survey in which all NGBs recognised by each of the four home country sports councils – Sport England, Sport Northern Ireland, SportScotland and the Sports Council for Wales – were invited to take part. In total, 60 NGBs responded.

The results of the survey indicate a number of areas where NGBs in the UK are adhering to best practice. For example 93 per cent of NGBs have an organisational strategy in place with 88 per cent of these indicating that the strategy covered at least the next three years. A very high proportion of NGBs engage with stakeholders with a large majority (80 per cent) reporting that these engagement initiatives informed their decision making processes. Moreover approximately two-thirds of NGBs have stakeholder representation at board/committee level. Despite the majority of NGBs demonstrating best practice in these areas, it was also found that only a minority of NGBs put in place board induction and board training, and only a small percent evaluate board performance. It was also found that there is scope for many NGBs to improve their approach to human resource management; training opportunities for both paid and volunteer staff were identified by only one third of responding NGBs with little money spent on training.

The results of the survey informed the development of a series of best practice recommendations for NGBs in the UK. These recommendations can be seen below. However it must be remembered that there are large variations in size, turnover, and organisational structure of NGBs in the UK, therefore not all recommendations will be relevant for all NGBs - a one-size fits all strategy is not appropriate. Instead the recommendations serve to provide a checklist for NGBs to consider and implement where relevant.

Key Recommendations

The Board and Committee

• The number of board or committee members should be no more than 10
• NGBs must consider appointing at least one independent non-executive director from outside the sport to their board or committee
• The board or committee should be involved in decisions on hiring senior staff
• NGBs should implement an induction procedure for new board/committee members that sets out the role of the board and includes terms of reference, code of conduct, statutory duties, and director responsibilities
• NGBs should provide appropriate and relevant training for board/committee members
• NGB boards should nominate one individual responsible for evaluating annual board performance
• The chair of the board/committee should undertake annual appraisals of individual board members
• NGBs need to consider the development of a marketing strategy
• The board/committee needs to delegate operational issues to NGB staff
• The board/committee should develop a risk management policy
• All NGBs should have Sport Resolutions written into their statutes/constitution

Human Resource Management

• NGBs should be encouraged to deploy HRM in a more sophisticated way through the Competency Framework
• There is a need to identify barriers preventing NGBs from implementing what appear to be more effective practices
• NGBs should build a sound participatory base that rewards, recognises and empowers both volunteer and paid employees
• NGBs should provide support and training programmes to assist with the development of more strategic and formal HR practices
• NGBs need to provide developmental training for all levels including board members, paid staff and volunteers
• NGBs need to consider developing a method for measuring the importance of investing in human resources in sport organisations

Stakeholder Management and Corporate Responsibility

• NGBs should undertake a mapping exercise and identify their stakeholders according to the level of power they wield and the level of interest they have in NGB governance
• NGBs should seek to implement stakeholder engagement and stakeholder participation strategies appropriate to the position of stakeholders on a power/interest matrix
• All NGBs should bring key stakeholders to the board/committee to improve stakeholder representation
• Where NGBs are involved in corporate responsibility, the objectives must be clear from the outset in order to evaluate impact

[1] The Birkbeck Sport Business Centre  - www.sportbusinesscentre.com is a research centre in the Management Department at Birkbeck, University of London. It brings together experts in sport management to deliver high quality research who also teach on the postgraduate programme in Sport Management & the Business of Football, one of the leading sport management courses in the UK. The authors of the report on governance are Dr Geoff Walters; Dr Linda Trenberth; Richard Tacon

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